


Cloudy In My Mind

by ouroborosnakes



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Introspection, implied deaths - more in note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27074317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ouroborosnakes/pseuds/ouroborosnakes
Summary: No comforting shoulder touch or half-assed condolences would sooth him, despite the intention they might have had.No amount of blood on their hands could match what clung to his skin.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Cloudy In My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> if you are particularly bothered by animal/dog death, i'd advise maybe skipping the first segment, but it is intentionally very vaguely worded. otherwise the rest is canonical.

Hal watched, quietly. It was another bad day. There was no easy way to avoid it, but he’d much rather sit in dread than wake her.

Beside him, Emma stirred; he put his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to lull her back to sleep or to keep her still.

In front of him, his dog whined, having otherwise been silent; the reassurance she was still alive was only slightly more comforting than thinking about the pain she must be in.

“Hey,” Hal whispered, stroking with his fingertips between her closed eyes, “it’s okay. I’m here.”

From across the room, Julie looked sympathetic, but stayed her distance. She wasn’t stupid enough to pull something now, with Emma asleep beside him and in broad daylight.

On the living room floor, his dog wheezed, deep in her chest, coughing like she was out of air.

The telephone ringing startled Hal, though Julie was fast enough to grab it and walk around the corner, cord pulling as she tried to get as far away as it would let her.

Emma stirred, again, rubbing at her eyes. Julie’s voice rose briefly, angrily, then disappeared.

In front of him, his dog stopped whining.

1996.

* * *

“Hal,” taking off her glasses, Emma swallowed the blood that puddled in her mouth. Out of his peripheral vision, Hal saw Snake and Raiden talking quietly, only vaguely catching the motion of their mouths moving. Whatever they were saying was drowned by the sound of rushing water filling his ears, though Emma’s voice was clear as day. It’d been so long.

“E.E.,” he smiled weakly, pulling her closer to him. The crudely fixed wound through her abdomen bled profusely onto his clothes, the smell stuck in his nose, blood on his hands. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Snake and Raiden were desensitized to this - part of the job - but Otacon never expected this. It was an infiltration mission, not a botched family reunion. He was a civilian, roped into dirty work he only thought happened in exaggerated action films.

One of the two men in the room took half a step forward to console Otacon when the other pulled him back. 

It didn’t matter; his sister was dying in his arms. No comforting shoulder touch or half-assed condolences would sooth him, despite the intention they might have had. Their surface-level knowledge of her carried no weight. No amount of blood on their hands could match what clung to his skin.

The last thing she heard wasn’t even her name.

2009.

* * *

“Uncle Hal?” Sunny was far too big by now to sit on Hal’s lap like she was, but he held her nonetheless.

“Yes?”

“You’re sad,” she states, matter-of-fact.

“I am.”

“Is it because Snake’s sick?” Hal nods, feebly. Sometimes he thought she was too smart for her own good, regardless of how blunt she may be at times.

Despite what she knew and what Hal knew she knew, they never used the word _dying_. Snake was just sick, but they knew he was never getting better.

There was nothing else to say, but the silence was suffocating. Sunny started talking about something Hal droned out. It wasn’t that he didn’t care - he couldn’t hear Snake snoring over her, and he feared the worst, but didn’t want to alarm her by telling her to stop, though she was probably starting a distraction for his sake.

Snake didn’t want to die surrounded by his loved ones. He loved them back, of course, but he didn’t want their last sight of him to be him miserable, vulnerable, weak. It was one of the reasons he had wanted to kill himself - save them from watching him deteriorate even more so, despite how selfish it seemed to Otacon. Though it paled in comparison to Snake, he had seen too many loved ones slip through his fingers, never able to obtain them again that he respected Snake for not wanting to put him through that. 

Sunny, as smart as she was, must’ve picked up Hal was not listening. She didn’t find offense and ended her one-sided conversation, clinging to Hal’s arm, closing her eyes and resting her head against his shoulder. 

Snake lay in the other room, giving him the privacy of a man sleeping, though he gradually became harder to hear as his illness progressed. Their conversation wouldn’t have bothered him, probably. His snoring, however, increased with age; which went from endearing to annoying to safety. For a brief moment, Hal couldn’t hear that gruff voice, visibly tensing as Sunny sat in his arms. 

A coughing fit later, Hal let out the breath he had been holding, putting his head atop Sunny’s and closing his eyes.

Even when the coughing fit went on for too long and then very abruptly stopped, followed by a prolonged silence, he sat with his daughter, who didn’t seem to mind when his tears wet her hair.

2016.

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't bother pulling up emma's death cutscene from mgs2, so i just recalled it by memory.
> 
> thank you for reading! had kind of a shit day and tapped something on my phone while i was waiting at the pharmacy. 
> 
> (also, fun fact: the doc was just called "Sad" lol)


End file.
